Source: WeeklyStandard.com
In this two-page piece, Alonzo Hamby reviews Justin Hart‘s Empire of Ideas: The Origins of Public Diplomacy and the Transformation of U.S. Foreign Policy.
What’s the big transformation? In short—the development of mass media and its subsequent employment by policymakers in foreign policy. Before radio—to say nothing of Twitter—international relations was the sport of kings. High-level representatives of governments could meet (often secretly) and hash out agreements among one another.
Now, foreign policy almost inevitably involves public relations, or “public diplomacy” as it often is called. Whenever a leader visits another country it is big news and governments go through great pains to roll it out in a way that will beguile the cameras. Additionally, governments now may create public—both domestic and foreign—pressures on other leaders by employing persuasive mass media. Inevitably, battles erupt to control the narrative.
Professor Hamby argues that Hart overplayed his cards.
Whether deliberately or not, Hart invites us to believe that, until well into the last century, diplomacy was conducted by elites calculating balances of power and undertaking negotiations with little attention to mass opinion. But the mobilization of power throughout human history has usually involved appeals to a larger population. Wars of religion, whatever ulterior motives we might attribute to them, have invoked the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Imperial ventures have declared a civilizing mission. The American Revolution is unrecognizable without the Declaration of Independence; the French Revolution without liberty, equality, and fraternity; the Mexican War without Manifest Destiny; the American Civil War without the Emancipation Proclamation; the diplomacy of Woodrow Wilson without the Fourteen Points; the alliance building of Franklin Roosevelt without the Atlantic Charter.
You may read more at http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/alonzo-l.-hamby